During the tsunami, mom Jillian Searle, says she was forced to make an agonizing decision: let go of one of her young sons in order to save the other.

According to Daily Mail, Jillian was with her 2-year-old son, Blake, and five-year-old son, Lachie, at the time by their hotel pool in Thailand. She heard a loud noise she said sounded like jets. Then she saw the water.

She picked up Blake and grabbed Lachie’s hand and ran. They made it into the hotel lobby, which was filling with water. A teenager put her hand out to help the Lachie, and that’s when Jillian let go of his other hand.

“I knew we would all die if I didn’t let go of one of the boys. I just wouldn’t have had anything to fight the water,” she told Daily Mail.

Then she and Blake were pulled under the water. They survived, and when it was safe, she began to search for Lachie among survivors who made it to the hotel roof.

It turns out that the teenager who tried to help him, lost him. Jillian thought he was dead, until he appeared in front of her.

It turns out Lachie, who couldn’t swim, had grabbed onto a door and held on for a couple of hours. He told Daily Mail his mother made the right decision.